


Grief is A Thing With Feathers

by Felurian1



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Canon Compliant, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-31 01:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21035474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felurian1/pseuds/Felurian1
Summary: The tension has been building for a long time, and today it boils over. Dean and Cas confront each other over their combined loss and grief.





	Grief is A Thing With Feathers

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for S15 E1

It had been two months since the graveyard. Two months of hard fighting, of constant battles and siege mentality, of barely stopping to rest between hunts. Two months in which Dean had barely spoken to Cas beyond the necessary, Sam acting like an interpreter between them when he had the energy to do it. But now they were back at the Bunker, Sam gone to fetch supplies, and Cas and Dean were alone for the first time in weeks.

They were in the kitchen, making a play at normality, but the silence was stifling, making Cas itchy in his clothes. He took off the trenchcoat, laying it on the edge of the table where Dean immediately pushed it off and onto a chair, thumping down across from it. Cas said nothing, feeling the build up of tension and hurt in the air like lightning about to burst.

“What?”, the word bitten out of Dean’s mouth, full of hardness and anger. It hit Cas like a bullet, like a slap. Like hatred from your closest friend in the world. He felt himself hunching over a little as though that would shield him. So it had come to it, finally.

“Dean, I-”

“You what Cas? You want to apologise again? You want me to accept that, accept that you let this happen? What?”

Cas took a deep, shuddery breath as he tried to remember what he wanted to say. He closed his eyes for a moment, but when he opened them Dean was still sitting there, still glaring at him. He took it slowly, one word at a time.

“I think that I have a right to be grieving too.”

Dean frowned at that, mouth forming a tight straight line that meant he was holding something back. Cas took the silence as permission to continue, letting his hands grip the kitchen top to hide the shaking.

“You lost Mary because of my mistake. I know that. But I lost Jack too. You’re acting like you’re the only one who’s hurt here, but Jack was my… Jack was my responsibility. And I failed him, and I need to be able to say that, Dean”

“That’s it? Well no shit Cas, of course you failed him. You thought that you could contain your angel problem, like always, and it blew up in our faces. Its like you can’t even see what you’re doing.” Dean’s face was dark as he spoke, eyes fixed firmly on his coffee, and Cas could almost hear the clay cracking under his grip.

Of course Dean was right, he had messed up over and over and over again. With purgatory, with the leviathans, with Sam and Metatron and Naomi and. The list was endless.

“I know. I have failed all of you more times than I can count. But Dean, please,” and Dean looked up at that, “can’t we let it be past now? We need each other, all of us-”

“We need each other?”, and now Dean got to his feet, letting his body fill the space as his voice rose to a shout, “You know who needed us? She did. She needed us when Jack was cracking up, when he was freakin’ torturing Nick to death, when he was - when he was smiting her, that’s when she needed us.” Dean was very close to Cas now and his eyes were black pits of grief and fury. “You know where we were, Cas?”, and Dean raised his arm as though to strike him, Cas closing his eyes to accept the blow. “We. Weren’t. There”, and there was an awful crashing as he slammed his fist through a cupboard door on every word, splinters digging into his hand and flying into Cas’s face. There was blood dripping down his fingers as he leaned back against the table, panting hard.

Cas kept his eyes closed, feeling little trickles of blood running down his forehead and over his cheeks. His breath was shaking as he tried to gather himself to reply, when he heard Dean whisper. 

“Why did it have to be her, Cas?”

Cas thought, afterwards, that that was when he felt Dean’s heart shatter. A moment of bright and shining clarity amidst all the darkness of their days, his Grace flaring to meet the need in his human charge. Cas opened his eyes, and in two paces he was standing in front of the hunter. It surprised him more than he would admit to see that Dean was crying.

Cas stepped up to Dean, and Dean allowed himself to lean forward until his head rested on Cas’s chest. They stayed there for a few long moments, the weight of each other’s bodies calming them. Cas’s voice came soft and wrecked when he spoke. 

“Why did it have to be him?”, and he allowed the tears he’d been holding back to fall, wetting Dean’s hair and his shirt, now covered in smeared blood and salt water. The blood brought Cas back to himself, and he pushed Dean back enough to place a hand on his forehead and heal his hands. Dean gave a sort of half smile.

Dean spoke into the quiet. “I’m not okay, you know that right? I don’t know if I can be okay around you, Cas”, and Cas nodded his understanding. “I’ll just wait here, then”, he replied, catching Dean’s eye just enough to make the hunter chuckle through his tears. “And uhh,” Dean said, running a hand across his face, “For what it’s worth Cas, he was our kid too”. Cas let his fingers dust over Dean’s hair, wiping away the evidence of their fight, his hand lingering enough to let Dean know he’d heard.

Dean took a deep breath and straightened up, smoothing his shirt down and letting his usual detached expression fall over his face. Beside him, Castiel shrugged his shoulders back into his trenchcoat, burning a tiny amount of Grace to wipe the redness from his eyes. 

“Now what do you say we go kill some things?”, and with that Dean headed for the door, the air between them a little clearer than it had been before. He didn’t hear Cas mutter as he followed behind, “I forgive you too, Dean”.


End file.
